Page 34 of Lobanov Bratva Obsession
“You want to use yourself as bait,” Damian growled, his hand tightening on my thigh.
“It’s not bait if I control the hook,” I countered. “I have the evidence for the second phase of the lawsuit—the ties between the shell companies and the offshore accounts Sergeiuses to fund the local precincts. If I leak a controlled portion of that data through the court filings, it will freeze his primary liquid assets. He’ll have to surface. He’ll have to show up at the bank or the consulate to authorize the release of those funds personally.”
Damian resisted. I could see the enforcer in him wanting to simply hunt, to find a nest and burn it. But as he looked at me, he saw the lawyer who had spent a decade studying Sergei’s paranoia. He realized that brute force would only drive Sergei deeper into his hole. To kill the king, you had to make him walk out.
“He’ll come for you with everything he has the moment that filing hits the desk,” Damian warned.
“Then we make sure the world is watching when he does,” I replied.
I stood up and walked to the desk, the cool air of the room hitting my sensitized skin as I put on my robe.
“What are you doing?” Damian asked, standing behind me, his hands resting on my shoulders.
“Going to record a confidential legal statement,” I said.
Chapter Sixteen
Damian’s POV
I stood in the darkened command center of the estate, the only light provided by the flickering blue of the monitors. The data Yuri had brought me an hour ago was a death sentence, though not for us. Sergei Vasiliev had finally stepped over the one line the Bratva did not cross.
Encryption-breaking software had finally pierced the comms between Sergei and the Irish syndicate out of Hell’s Kitchen. He wasn’t just asking for help; he was selling the city. In exchange for the “erasure” of Elena, Sergei had offered the Irish three major shipping ports and a forty-percent stake in the Bronx distribution routes.
It was a betrayal of Bratva unity that marked him as irredeemable. In our world, you could kill your brother, and you could steal from your father, but you never—ever sold territory to an outsider to settle a blood feud. Sergei had abandoned the code to save his own skin. He wasn’t a Bratva elder anymore. He was a cancer.
“Mobilize everyone,” I said, my voice echoing like a mallet against a coffin. “I want every Lobanov blade in the city drawn. Now.”
The response was instantaneous. The Lobanov brothers closed ranks with a speed that only comes from a lifetime of shared trauma and survival. This was the culmination of years of tension, the final war that would either solidify our legacy or see us buried in the New York silt.
Viktor arrived first, his presence commanding the room before he even spoke. Behind him were the legacy figures of our history—men and women who had fought their own wars in the years before this one. I saw the grim faces of our primarystrategists and the lethal quiet of our frontline captains. We weren’t just a family tonight; we were an empire at war.
“Sergei has chosen his grave,” Viktor said, his eyes scanning the tactical map. “We will make sure it’s a deep one.”
As the room filled with the low hum of tactical briefings and the clicking of weapons being checked, Yuri approached me. He didn’t look at the maps. He looked at me, his face a mask of rigid, traditional fury.
“Can I have a word, boss? Privately.”
I led him into the small armory adjacent to the command center. The door hissed shut, cutting off the sound of the mobilization.
“You’re burning the city for her, boss,” Yuri spat, his voice trembling with a jagged, suppressed rage. “You’re breaking the alliances, risking the brothers, and inviting the Irish into a street war—all because of Elena Vasiliev. You are weakening the Bratva by choosing a woman over tradition.”
I stood my ground, my height and the coldness of my gaze forcing him to crane his neck. “Tradition is what kept us in the shadows while Sergei stole the foundation out from under us, Yuri. Loyalty without vision is nothing but stagnation.”
“She’s changed you.”
“She’s awakened me,” I corrected. “Now get back to your post. We have a city to take.”
Yuri masked his disapproval, but it was too late. I had seen the flicker in his eyes—the same flicker I had seen in the men who were preparing to jump ship. I began to suspect the unthinkable: that Yuri, my right hand, might be feeding Sergei information. The proof remained elusive; there were no digital footprints, no leaked accounts. But the instinct that had kept me alive as the Ghost was screaming.
I wouldn’t banish him. Not yet. I would keep him close, right in the center of the storm, intending to flush out the truth by the way he moved when the fire got hot.
I walked back into the command center, the weight of the double betrayal—Sergei’s and potentially Yuri’s—pressing on my chest. I looked at the map. The pins were moving. The pieces were set.
But before I stepped into the dark, I had one final stop to make.
I left the noise of the armory behind, the click of magazines and the bark of orders fading into a dull hum as I climbed the stairs to the upper levels of the estate. The air here was thinner, quieter, but it carried a different kind of pressure.
Elena was standing by the window of our suite. She hadn't dressed for sleep; she wore a simple black sweater and trousers, her platinum hair pulled back in a severe, functional knot. She looked like a woman who had already moved past the point of fear and was simply waiting for the inevitable.
